“Why, Laura, what’s up?” And then, “My dear girl, you do look white! But this heat’s enough to knock up any one.” And so disposed of his concern and turned to his prepared table, while she sought for an answer and found none upon her lips save the forgotten, petulant retort of her childhood.
“I’m—not—your dear girl!”
But there was neither petulance nor childishness in her voice as she said it, rather an intonation of such hopelessness, such despair, that Justin must have guessed at worse trouble than the heat, had he not been talking too fast on his own account to catch a word.
“Now then—let’s get to work. But the eggs? Where’s the box of eggs? Why, Laura, you’ve cleared away the eggs! Did you sort them? I never told you to. Did you put them in the cabinet?”
She shook her head.
“Where then?”
Still she did not speak. She was making the discovery that she had lost control of her voice, of the muscles of her throat. She swallowed once or twice. She said, her will said, two and three and four times, “They are broken. I broke them,” but she made no sound at all. The sensation was a horrible one. It confirmed, with its physical reality, the paralysis of her spirit.
Justin, watching her, guessed distortedly at the truth.
“There’s been an accident?”
You could not say that she shook her head, but she moved it stiffly, once, a very little.